Sheriff's Office rejects merger with schools police

The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office says with the schools police department would bring additional costs they are not ready to absorb.

The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office has rejected merging with the schools police department — for now.

Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said in a letter to Superintendent Wayne Gent the merger would bring additional costs the agency was not ready to absorb.

He "respectfully declined" to put together a proposal for the partnership, saying his budget already had been submitted to the County Commission.

"Hopefully at some point in the future, we can revisit the concept," Bradshaw wrote.

The school district, looking to possibly cut costs and leverage additional resources, earlier this month asked the Sheriff's Office for details of what a merger would involve.

A similar pitch more than two years ago also was rejected because the Sheriff's Office felt school officials lacked sufficient interest.

This year, the district is up against a more than $60 million capital budget shortfall and is under pressure to boost security in light of the Connecticut school massacre in December.

"We're going to move forward with utilizing our police department on our own, and we're ramping it up for next school year," said Mike Burke, chief operating officer for the district. "At some point, maybe we'll get to revisit it ... looks like the timing didn't work well [this year]."

The district is in the process of hiring 24 additional school-resource officers at a cost of $1.6 million. The 30 police aides added this year will also remain, at a cost of $800,000.

"I'm happy that it was declined," said LaTanzia Jackson, chair of the Coalition for Black Student Achievement. She and dozens other community members flooded a recent School Board meeting to protest the plan.

She remained concerned, however, that the idea could be revisited.

"I would feel better knowing that it will never happen, but each time it comes up we will be there," she said.